Diamond Storm
by EtherealShadow
Summary: [AU] Boarding school? Far away from home? Greaaat. So, so boring... or so Sora thought. That was, until he found someone who seemed to delight in shaking up his world like a herd of pink elephants doing a Riverdance to heavy metal. [RxS]
1. Dreams and Dorms

**A/N:** Yaaaay, first KH fic, yaaaay. All right, all right, so it's a typical school Sora/Riku AU fic, but I shall be throwing in things that don't (to my knowledge) happen in the other fics of the kind. But hey, we love these because they ARE cheesy soap operas, right? (Well, at least I do…)

By the way, Sora's last name, Maemi, means "honest child," or so the internet has told me. EGADS, but it was hard to name Sora and Riku! x.x

**Disclaimer:** Yes, yes, it is mine, all MINE, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! On a totally random side note, the KH manga is really adorable, and you should find it and read it if you haven't already.

* * *

_Sora hummed in contentment and wiggled his toes, feeling the sand squish between the digits. Gulls cried out to one another as they rode the gentle breeze; the sun blanketed him in its warmth, partially blocked by the fronds of the overhead palm tree. Waves broke against the shore, mixing with the cries of the gulls to form a beautiful music unique to the islands. One of the island girls was lying there with him, someone he knew but somehow didn't. It didn't bother him though, she was pretty, and he was happy. A blissful sigh escaped his lips. This was perfection._

"_Please…"_

_He sat up, grudgingly opening his eyes. Some part of him realized that the girl was gone, but he didn't really care. There was a woman in the water, standing there and staring at him, though he couldn't really see her face. She was very blurry, and Sora squinted his eyes to try to see better. She came into focus, a lovely, preened, blonde little thing that suddenly reminded him of a doll._

"_Fasten your seatbelts and place your trays in the upright position," she snarled, and Sora jumped a foot off the ground in surprise as she suddenly appeared only a few feet away from him, a mean look on her face._

"_Huh?" Sora gasped, confused._

_Then she began to mutate._

_Her eyes grew big and round, her hands changed to wickedly sharp claws. Fangs sprouted from her mouth, which was gaping open and dripping saliva, the picture capped by the random appearance of a big thunderstorm, the flashing lightning lighting the apparition in front of him in a frighteningly evil way._

"_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Sora yelled, scrambling in the sand as he tried to back away. "IT'S BARBIE FROM **HELL**!"_

_There were unintelligible murmurings al around him, and he felt _things_ looking at him. But Sora ignored them, focusing only on the demented thing before him. Sora grabbed some oddly solid sand and hurled it at her, cheering as it smashed into her face, breaking apart to spray all over her. However, his elation faded as something else began yelling at him…_

"HEY!"

"-ank you for flying Destiny Airlines."

Sora opened his eyes to find the man from the seat in front of him glaring at him and clutching a cup in is clenched hand. The teen raised his eyes to the man's angry- and dripping- face. Sora blinked. Dripping? Stomach sinking, he glanced down to find that his still-full cup of soda had mysteriously gone missing. No wonder that sand had been so solid…

A blush lit his face as Sora realized that he had thrown his drink at the Barbie (a.k.a. the man now looking about ready to see him drawn and quartered) in his sleep. He sheepishly offered up the tiny napkin that had come with his drink to the angry man, which only increased the glare that he was receiving tenfold. "Uh… sorry?"

"Excuse me, sir, is there a problem?" a flatly polite voice asked, and Sora turned to see a flight attendant staring at them, a large, fake smile plastered on her face.

"Yes, there is," the man hissed.

"Sir, I'm afraid that I must ask you to be seated," the woman interrupted.

"But this boy _ruined_ my _suit_!" the man all but yelled.

"Sir!" the stewardess exclaimed, painted eyes widening in alarm. "Please calm yourself and take a seat."

"I'm really very sorry," Sora said, widening his already large, puppy-dog eyes in an attempt to win some pity. "You see, I was having a nightmare, and-"

"Do you _know_ how _expensive_ this suit was?" the man demanded of Sora, leaning over the seat towards the teen.

"Sir!" the flight attendant exclaimed, dropping all pretense of politeness. "Sit _down_! We will have this issue addressed when we are on the ground, now kindly _sit_!"

"What's going on?" somebody asked, and Sora found that people were unabashedly leaning around their seats and all but getting up to watch them; he could see people from the Economy Class seats straining to watch and listen, too.

"Is it a highjacking?" someone else wondered.

"It'd be up with the pilots if he was doing _that_," came another voice.

"Oh… you sure?"

"Is there a problem?" a steely voice demanded, so close that Sora jumped. Another flight attendant, this one male, had joined the fray.

"Ooooh, maybe someone'll get arrested!"

"Everyone, please fasten your seatbelts and remain calm," yet another airline worker implored, addressing the captivated audience and trying rather unsuccessfully to block their view.

"I want to know what you're going to do about this boy," the wet man said, pointing an accusing finger at Sora.

"I didn't mean t-" Sora began, but was cut off again, this time by the voice of the pilot.

"Flight attendants, please prepare for our descent into the Traverse area. Passengers, on your right will be the city, renowned for…"

"It was an accide-" Sora tried again.

"This boy is a menace! He must be punished!" the angry man yelled over the rising din.

"ENOUGH!" the male flight attendant hollered, both at those participating in and at those watching the spectacle. "Sir, take your seat _now_. It is a federal offense to disobey an airline official, and if you do not comply _instantly_, the police will be meeting you once we land!"

The man finally shut his mouth and sat down, and Sora obediently fastened his seatbelt. Once they were sure that all was in order, the flight attendants finally left, and the other passengers quieted a bit. Sora sank down in his chair, staring gloomily out of his window. The man's anger was all but palpable, and even the large, first-class seat didn't provide much of a barrier.

The plane couldn't land soon enough.

* * *

Sora groaned and crawled into the limo, flashing a tired smile at the driver as the man shut the door after him. A few moments later the car rumbled to life and pulled away from the curbside pick-up, and Sora sank back into the leather, running an arm across his eyes as he yawned. He was currently running… he checked his watch. Over four hours late now. Once the plane had landed, everyone onboard had been forced to remain where they were while, much to his great embarrassment, the police boarded and walked him and the man off of the plane. The next stop had been a small room in a hallway somewhere, and the security officials had (excruciatingly slowly) begun to get down to what had happened. Then there were delays as more airport people were summoned, then the two offenders were questioned separately, then together, then more delays, and then a discussion if charges were going to be pressed (and all the while the man had only been growing more and more irate), and then Sora was _finally_ allowed to go after it had been determined that it had truly been an accident. Of course by that time, Sora's stomach had been grumbling insistently for quite a while, and that mandated a stop in the packed food court. And so, by the time he got outside, his ride had been long gone, and he had been forced to call the company and ask for another car to come back for him, which required a good half-hour's wait on top of everything else, completely blowing his schedule out the window.

He flicked the window switch and the tinted glass obediently lowered, letting in not the nice fresh air that Sora had expected but a mouthful of dirty, exhaust-filled… well, something that didn't have any right to call itself air, and he promptly rolled the window right back up, choking. Oh, what he would give to be back on the beach right now…

"Okay," the brunet muttered to himself, "this is getting pathetic. You've been gone, what, a few hours, and already you're homesick? Get it together."

_Talking to yourself is the first sign on insanity, you know…_ a voice in his head reprimanded.

"Shut up!"

Sora stared drearily around at the city as the car slowly made its way through the jam-packed streets. More people than Sora had ever seen in his life thronged the sidewalks and shops that they passed, and the teen briefly wondered where there was room to _put _them all. But apparently there was room enough, for the city went on and on and on. Momentarily forgetting about his jetlag, Sora stared out the window at everyone in amazement, taking it all in. Maybe this wouldn't be quite so bad. Maybe.

It took a good hour and a half to finally reach Traverse Private Academy, and by the time the car pulled up to the entrance, Sora was all but asleep in his seat, though it was only early evening and the sun had just barely set. He only perked up a little bit when the door next to him opened, and he stumbled out, staring around at the fancy school. One of the dorm buildings (his, he hoped) loomed over him, and there were a bunch of other buildings scattered all over the place. He thanked the driver, had the expense charged to his card, and wearily dragged his suitcases into the building without bothering to look around much.

Sora paused at the front desk, calling out when he didn't see anyone there. "Uh, hello? Anyone here?"

"Hiiiiiiiiiiiii!" a girl squealed, bouncing out of a back room and dashing over to the desk, scaring the wits out of the tired Sora. "My name is Selphie, pleased to meet you! Are you new here?"

Despite his exhaustion, Sora found that the girl's enthusiasm was catching. He grinned back at her, dropping his bags. "Yup. Name's Sora, Sora Maemi. D'you work here?" he asked curiously, wondering at the fact that she was his age and not some scary old woman with overly thick glasses and scary teeth like he had expected.

She giggled at him, tilting her head. "No, silly, I'm only helping right now with the new people. You're really late, by the way," she added.

Sora laughed and rubbed the back of his head. "Uh, yeah, there were some problems with the plane," he mumbled.

"Oooh, lucky!" she suddenly exclaimed, and Sora jumped a bit.

"W-what?" Since when were plane delays good?

"Looks like you get a room to yourself for now! Unless anyone else transfers in, you'll be by yourself."

"Oh…" Sora said, slowly letting her words sink in. "Cool." As she did whatever it was she was doing, Sora glanced up and down the hallway. There were a few people wandering around, but not too many, and they really didn't catch his interest.

When he looked at her again, Selphie was flipping through a drawer. She extracted a set of keys on a ring and set them on the desk before producing a stack of papers, which she also pushed towards him. "Okay, so there're your keys, you're in room 704. That's in the East Hall, mind, which you're currently in. Just sign this paper-" she set one in front of him with a pen- "to get your keys and you can take the rest to your room and read it. Just bring it back tomorrow or something. Hey, do you have your ID card?"

Sora paused a moment before digging through his pockets. Selphie giggled as he extracted all manner of things including crumpled papers, his plane ticket stubs, an empty chip bag that Sora had eaten in the airport, batteries (what were they doing in there?), a random pen, some money, his credit card, and quite a bit of lint. Finally he found it and held it up with an, "A-ha!"

Selphie snatched it from his hand, inspecting it. "Ooh, cute picture!" Sora blushed lightly as he grabbed it back, earning another laugh. "Well, you'll need it for a lot of stuff including getting food on campus, so keep it with you, kay?"

Sora nodded and grasped the keys and papers before bending down to try and grab his bags. In the end, the keyring ended up hanging out of his mouth and the papers were crumpled and held with only two fingers while the others wrapped around the suitcase handles. He set off awkwardly towards the elevator, very glad that he didn't have to lug his stuff all the way up the stairs.

"I'm on the seventh floor too, come and see me later!" Selphie called at his retreating back.

"Mmph," Sora agreed, dropping one of his suitcases and kicking it into the elevator so that he could wave at her. Then he clambered in, nearly tripping over said kicked suitcase, and took it up to the designated floor. He managed to get out of the elevator without killing himself and even found the door to his hallway, but was quite confused when the door wouldn't open. He abandoned his stuff and tugged on the door again, to no avail. He jiggled the handle and pulled and pulled, but the door didn't open.

Until it did, nearly smacking into Sora's head in the process. As it was, Sora stumbled backwards to avoid it, stumbled on his suitcases, and fell backwards onto the floor, landing painfully on his butt.

"Hey, what's all the noise out here?" a heavily accented voice asked, and Sora looked up to see a teen with flaming red hair peering down at him curiously. "Hey, you all right there, man?"

Sora picked himself up, blushing as he stumbled again. "Uh, yeah, I'm good."

"You tryin' to break down the door or something?" the other demanded, an eyebrow raised.

"I couldn't get in," Sora mumbled, staring down at his feet.

"You try the scanner thing?"

Sora wrinkled his nose in confusion and looked back at the teen, who promptly began laughing. "Scanner thing?"

The boy bent down and grabbed Sora's keys off the floor, holding up a little plastic thing on the ring and pointing to a matching box by the door handle. "Ya, you scan this and the door opens. Only works for this building, though." He demonstrated.

"Oh…" Sora said, feeling incredibly stupid. How many times in one day could he make a fool of himself, and in a brand new place to boot?

"S'alright, man. Name's Wakka, floor manager. You one of the newbies?" Wakka asked.

"Yeah, my name's Sora. I think my room is here?"

Wakka's face brightened. "Yup, yer sharin' a bathroom wit' me, ya? Come on, let's get you inside. You're really late, you know."

"I know, I know," Sora groaned, grabbing what he could of his things and stealing back his keys from his new floor manager. Wakka grabbed one bag and they stumbled down the hallway. They didn't have far to go though, for Wakka's door was the first on the right and Sora's was right next door. Sora dropped his bags in front of his door and inspected it, then stared at his keys.

Wakka blinked at him. "You all right, man?"

"This door doesn't have one of the… thingies on it, does it?" Sora asked uncertainly. He didn't think so, it looked just like a regular door, but he wasn't sure.

In reply, Wakka started laughing hysterically, slapping Sora on the back and nearly sending him crashing into the door. "Naw, man, that one's regular."

Sora nodded and stuck the key in the door but paused as another boy, this one blonde, stuck his head out of a door on the other side of the hall. "What's all the fuss?"

" 'Sup, man?" Wakka asked, and Sora abandoned his keys to face the new boy, eeping a bit when Wakka's arm snaked over his shoulders and he was shaken a bit. "This is Sora, he's new here. That there's Tidus."

"Hey," Tidus said in greeting, walking over and high-fiving Wakka. "Fresh blood!" the muscular blonde exclaimed, grinning at Sora evilly, and Sora laughed nervously. Tidus apparently saw the look on Sora's face, for he burst out laughing and clapped Sora on the shoulder. "Just joking, relax. Don't worry, you'll fit right in." Tidus grinned, and Sora smiled back.

Sora swatted Wakka's arm away, though he was grinning. The two seemed like pretty good guys, and fun to hang out with, at the very least. "Aren't there many new kids?" he asked.

"Nope, not really," Tidus answered.

"It's a new school year, but most of us have been here all along, or at least for a couple of years, ya? You're one of the only new kida in our year, man," Wakka added, blinking as Sora yawned hugely. "Anyway, you look dead on your feet, you ought to go sleep, man. I'll be around tonight and tomorrow. Just knock on the bathroom door if you need me, ya?"

Sora nodded gratefully and threw his stuff into his dark room. Without turning on a light or looking around, barely bothering to remove his shoes and shut the door, Sora gratefully collapsed onto the first thing that resembled a bed and shut his eyes.

With visions of flight attendants and scary dripping men dancing around on the ocean in pink tutus running through his mind, Sora slept.


	2. Lunch and Lateness

**A/N:** Yay, second chapter. And I know, Riku should be Sora's roomie, but come on, that's too easy now. :-P

**Disclaimer:** I do not (sadly) own Kingdom Hearts. Nor (not so sadly) Barbie, for that matter…

* * *

"BOO!"

Sora shrieked and jumped a foot off of his bed, eyes flying open as he was suddenly jolted awake. "Wha- who- where's the duck?"

He blinked and looked up to see Wakka raising his eyebrow at him. "Duck?"

"Yeah! He was wearing this funky hat and clothes and he was talking to me in a lisp and… carrying… a magic… wand…" Sora slowly trailed off and stopped his wild gestures that were supposed to help Wakka understand, realizing as he spoke just how lame he sounded.

"Right… you been drinkin', man? That's not allowed in the dorms, you know…"

"Hey!" Sora cried indignantly, completely ignoring Wakka's question and thinking of something else. "Why are you in my room?"

Sora's angry look only set Wakka off laughing, which the teen seemed to do rather a lot.

Sora pouted.

Wakka laughed harder.

Sora hurled his pillow at Wakka (which the tanned boy easily deflected) and then pushed himself up off of his sheetless bed. He managed to avoid tripping over and subsequently killing himself on his carelessly discarded shoes, though it was a near thing. He then proceeded to stick his tongue out at his laughing friend.

"Man, you're crazy, ya?"

"You still didn't answer," Sora said, making a show of crossing is arms over his chest and tapping his foot impatiently on the ground.

"I came in through the door," Wakka answered slowly as if to a small child, still grinning.

"But it's still shut," Sora said, looking in confusion at the door he had come through the previous night.

"The bathroom door," Wakka sighed. "I knocked and knocked but you didn't answer, so I just came in. You been sleepin' like the dead, man. You know what time it is?"

"Uh… no?"

"Food time! You're gonna miss lunch if you stay there much longer! Let's go."

Sora's stomach beat his mouth to a reply, grumbling angrily. With only a brief thought to the fact that he was still in yesterday's clothes (and an underarm sniff check proved that they were none too fresh) and a passing realization that his hair was a mess (then again, when was it not?), Sora complied, following Wakka out the door and pulling it shut behind him.

"Got your keys?" Wakka asked, looking back over his shoulder.

Sora's eyes widened and he turned back and all but dove for the door, which shut an instant before he reached it.

Wakka sighed. "You can go through my room later, just remember them next time, ya?"

Sora nodded, an overly serious look on his face, which made Wakka's mouth twitch in amusement. "Right."

"YO!" Wakka suddenly yelled down the hallway. "TIDUS! LUNCH!"

"SWEET!" Sora heard called back, and a split second later the blonde boy had joined them. "Afternoon, sleepyhead," he said upon seeing the brunet.

"Hey," Sora said. "So where're we eating, anyway?"

"Follow," Wakka commanded simply, and follow Sora did. They went down to the first floor in the elevator, hung a right, and were there. Sora, for one, was glad- he really wouldn't have any problems remembering where it was, and food was, after all, one of the most important things, well, ever. And if the strength of his stomach's complaints was any indication, he would end up there an awful lot.

The trio stopped at a desk just in front of the door where Tidus and Wakka promptly handed their school I.D.'s to the woman sitting behind it. Sora imitated them, suddenly glad that he hadn't changed clothes, and he was allowed in.

"You scan once to get in," Tidus explained upon seeing Sora's slightly confused look.

"But you can eat all you want once you're here!" Wakka finished, grinning as he glanced around.

Sora did the same and found himself looking at a couple of food stations along one wall and a simple room (complete with ugly carpet to hide the stains) full of other students. "Let's get our food and sit there," Tidus suddenly said, pointing to a table by the door.

The brunet nodded and set out on his own in search of sustenance. Needless to say, he was more than slightly disappointed with the food that was offered, for it was nothing like at home. He eventually settled for underdone noodles and a watery pasta sauce, then headed towards the fruit bar. He picked up a couple of different things, entirely unsure of how fresh they were, grabbed a drink, then wandered back to the table where Wakka and Tidus already sat stuffing their faces.

" 'ey," Tidus said through a mouthful of food as Sora sat down.

Sora was about to reply but was distracted by the _thing_ that Wakka was about to bite into. "What," Sora asked, eyebrow wrinkling in complete consternation, "is THAT?"

Wakka swallowed his food. "What, you never seen pizza before?"

"Pizza, yes. Greasy cardboard colored to _look_ like decent pizza, no," Sora replied, barely resisting the urge to reach out and touch the thing in Wakka's hands to see if it was alive. He had the stinking suspicion that it would rear up and attack him right back.

"Don't worry, you'll get hungry soon enough, and this'll seem like a heaven, all you can eat," Tidus informed him.

"Uh-huh…" Sora replied, fully unconvinced. "And what planet are you from, again?" He took a sip of his drink.

"I," Tidus said, momentarily abandoning his food to strike a pose with what Sora assumed was an imaginary blitzball, "am from Blitzania!"

Sora nearly spewed his mouthful of liquid all over Wakka as he burst out laughing. Some of said liquid escaped to dribble down from his chin before he could swallow it, and it was all he could do not to choke as he laughed.

"Man, that was lame, even for you, ya?" he heard Wakka say.

"Well, at least _he_ thinks I'm funny!"

Tidus' defensive reply only made Sora laugh even harder, and he accidentally knocked over his glass, splashing the cold water everywhere. Wakka shot up out of his seat with something that sounded eerily like a squeal, overbalanced, fell into Tidus, and dragged the blonde teen out of his chair on the way down.

Sora didn't think he could laugh any harder.

* * *

Sora was completely and utterly exhausted by the time he finally collapsed into his bed later that night. The day had been a whirlwind, and after he, Tidus, and Wakka had managed to regain control of themselves, they spent the rest of the daylight hours rushing from one campus building to another trying to get all of Sora's stuff in order. There were forms to be signed, books and uniforms to be bought, pictures to be taken, schedules to be obtained, and all manner of other things for him to do. Since he had managed to miss the main orientation, everything that he needed had apparently been sent off in all directions on the campus, and no one knew where what he needed was supposed to be and pointed him to the wrong place repeatedly, so actually getting any single thing required at least five other stops. Well, at least he almost knew his way around the administration and office buildings on campus. Almost.

After that, the three had spent time showing Sora around the dorm and helping him get his stuff unpacked and set up to the accompaniment of loud music courtesy of a stereo system in Wakka's room. It was really mostly Wakka sitting on the bed and ordering the others around, but there had been the moment when Tidus had gotten tired of it and attacked Wakka, starting a massive wrestling contest. Sora had stayed out of it for the most part, but couldn't resist throwing things at them as the pair had rolled out of his room and into the hallway. Person after person had come out of their rooms to see what was going on, and then they all wanted to meet Sora, and by the time he finally shut his dorr his head was spinning with new names and faces.

Sora grinned slightly as he thought of the two blitzballers. They were actually all right, those two. Sora doubted that they'd be the best of friends, but they seemed okay to hang out with, at least. Besides, if they hadn't kept him from getting lost he would have been wandering around the other side of Traverse Town by now. He supposed that his mother would be far too pleased to hear that he wasn't miserable.

"I ought to call her," Sora yawned, shedding his clothes in favor of pyjamas. "Tomorrow." He crawled into his bed and was immediately plunged into a deep sleep.

* * *

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

The scream hadn't even finished echoing down the hallway before the brunet teen had all but exploded from his bed. "I'M LAAAAAAAAAAAATTTEEEE!" Sora flew around the room like a whirlwind, clothes and books flying everywhere. He came to a sudden halt a minute later, shirt half around his shoulders and pants on backwards, huge eyes staring at the clock. It now read seven fifty-nine.

Class started at eight.

In another wing of the building.

Two minutes later, Sora sipped out of his room and into the vacant hallway, slamming his door shut behind him. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top and bottom and the ones that were buttoned were in the wrong holes. His tie was just hanging around his neck, completely undone; his jacket flapped open as he ran and the laces of his ugly brown shoes required by the school were untied. His hair was normally a rat's nest, but without a comb it was worse than ever, and he was certainly not going to spend time trying to tame it. Hastily packed bag dangling from one hand, Sora bolted down the hallway, praying that he remembered the way to his class. Hell, he hoped he remembered what that first class _was_.

He slid to a halt in front of the elevator, jamming his finger on the button. "Come on, come on," he demanded impatiently, glaring at said machine as the doors did not instantly open for him. Sora pressed the down button fifteen times in half as many seconds, and still nothing.

Fine. Time for plan B. Sora sucked in a deep breath to fortify himself and turned to the stairs. He zoomed down them at breakneck speed, fully expecting to trip over the laces and go smashing into the wall. Making a Sora-shaped blood splatter on the cement would certainly not improve his day any, but neither did the thought slow him down. Finally he burst out of the stairwell on the ground floor, just in time to see the elevator meet him there.

He growled at it and flew past, down one hallway, up a flight of stairs, around and around until he was just taking turns and staircases at random and hoping that they were almost sort-of maybe the right ones, checking his schedule for the room number so often that it was finally implanted upon his brain. He didn't know how, but somehow he managed to find the right corridor for his English class just as he was about to give up. He pelted straight down it, head turning from side to side as he tried to catch the room numbers. There was 410 on the left, 411 on the right, 412 left, another hallway on the left, 417 to the right…

Wait! Where were rooms 413 to 416? "Huh?" he gasped. Sora skidded to a stop, utterly confused. "Huh?" he gasped, peering down the hallway. But no, no room 413. Either the architect couldn't count or he was in a weird dimension. He half expected to see twisted clocks falling everywhere, maybe a white rabbit and a talking doorknob or two…

Shoulders slumping with the hopelessness of it all, Sora turned back. Maybe he had just missed two whole classrooms or something… "Heywaitaminute!" Sora exclaimed. There was that other hallway, maybe they were in there? Sure enough, he spotted an impossibly tiny sign that sported the missing room numbers and an arrow. With an all-suffering sigh, Sora set off running again, taking the corner in a wide arc that caused his shoes to squeak on the linoleum tile. He finally spotted the room he needed and all but threw himself at the door, slamming it open and stumbling inside. Twenty sets of eyes moved to lock onto him, and had Sora not already been red in the face from all the running, he would have blushed. "Uh, h-hi," he stammered, taking another step into the deadly silent room.

He drew up short, however, as he saw the teacher at the front of the room, half-turned towards him and one hand still holding chalk up to the board. Sora's heart sank as he immediately recognized the face.

"Barbie from Hell!" He had meant to only think it, but, judging from the titters in the room and the apoplectic look on his new teacher's face, he hadn't succeeded in that too well.

Hoo, boy…


	3. Elevators and Eye Twitches

**A/N:** So… There is finally Riku, a whole chapter of him. His last name means, "one reality." So yay for Riku! Um, let's see… college food. Right. Well, I suppose it's better than high school food, but it's still so… mass-produced. And Sora and the gang are in high school, by the way. Sora's just not used to eating food like that, he's used to fancier stuff from home. Other than that, the manga can be found at a lot of sites, I got mine from but it's out there in other places, too.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the lovely KH. Because everyone expects me to. Right.

* * *

Everyone in the room looked up as the door was nearly torn from its hinges, himself included. He had to stop a grin from forming on his face. Whoever was at the door had come at a wonderfully perfect moment: Mr. Mendalson had just finished the attendance and introductory speech and was now getting into the wonderfully boring lesson. Riku decided that he liked distractions.

Snickers wound their way around the classroom. Lazily, Riku looked up at the door. His lips stretched into a smile.

Wow.

_Can we say pathetic?_

A scrawny little kid stood just inside the room with a face as red as a cherry and a uniform that looked like it hadn't seen an iron in a decade or two. Riku briefly wondered if the kid had ever bothered to look in a mirror while he was dressing himself. Well, either that or he had been party to a particularly rough quickie that had had run overtime or something.

Riku had thought that his amusement level couldn't go any higher. But the first four words out of the boy's mouth certainly proved him wrong.

"It's Barbie from Hell!" the boy cried, dramatically flinging out a finger to point at their teacher.

At that, the entire class lost it. There was a moment of stunned silence for a heartbeat and then the class erupted into full-blown laughter. Riku buried his head in his arms in an attempt to block the laughter welling in his own chest and failed miserably. He dared a glance at Mendalson, who was standing motionless at the blackboard except for one arm which was trembling in anger, grinding the chalk into the green surface. The longer he stood there the more the class laughed, and the boy still stood pointing accusingly at him. All heads were turned expectantly in the instructor's direction.

The staring contest continued until, without moving his gaze, Mendalson uttered a single word: "Kazuma."

Riku's amused grin slipped from his face and his laughter immediately died as his name was spoken. "Sir?"

"Show Mr. Maemi to the headmaster's office."

Slightly creeped out by the smirk that suddenly twisted his teacher's face but quite relieved that he wasn't in trouble, Riku rose from his seat to a chorus of "oooooh"s from his classmates. "Yes, sir." He walked calmly down the center aisle, fighting hard to keep himself from laughing all over again at the look on the kid's face.

The boy's mouth was opening and closing without sounds, huge blue eyes all but popping out of his head as he stared at Mendalson in shock. Riku paused for half a second as he drew even with the disheveled teen. "Quit gaping, you look like an ugly carp," he murmured, smirking. Then he walked on.

He was almost to the intersection down the hallway before he realized that he was definitely lacking the person that he was supposed to be escorting. He turned around, placed his hands on his hips, and started tapping his foot impatiently. At long last (about five seconds later) the kid came stumbling out of the classroom. Riku scowled as the boy slowly approached, tapping foot stopping as he saw the expression on the scrawny delinquent's face. No, he wasn't- was he? Yes, he was!

He was _pouting_. And not just any pout, no, it was a full-blown I-want-this-brand-new-toy-but-mommy-won't-buy-it-for-me-'cause-she's-mean-and-hates-me pout that would have given even Kairi a run for her money. It was so cute it was disgusting.

He raked the kid over with his eyes as he finally caught up. "Nice hair," he told the brunet dryly. "I didn't know they allowed rats in this school, much less full-fledged nests." He smirked, pleased as he achieved his goal and the pout wavered a bit as the kid stared at him uncertainly.

One hand rose in defense to the wild hair. "Yeah, well, you're one to talk, meanie!"

"'Meanie'?" What are we, five?" Riku rolled his eyes and realized that they weren't walking. He abruptly ser off at a brisk pace, eager to deposit this kid in the Headmaster's clutches and be done with it.

"No!" Said kid was half jogging to keep up with him, but Riku didn't bother to slow for him.

"Whatever, kid."

"My name isn't kid," the kid replied indignantly. "It's Sora."

"Good for you," Riku replied sarcastically. "Do you want a medal?"

"Yes."

"Sucks for you."

Apparently Sora couldn't come up with a reply, for there was silence except for the sound of their footfalls and the occasional piece of a lecture drifting out of the open classroom doors they passed. Riku finally halted before an elevator, glancing at Sora out of the corner of his eye as they waited. Sora fixed his shirt and then moved on to the tie, trying in vain to tie it. Riku almost said something, but shut his mouth at the last second.

"What?" Sora asked, looking up from his tie, which was currently in some sort of knot halfway down its length.

Riku scowled at him. "Nothing."

Sora raised an eyebrow. "Okay…"

Riku turned his head away, eyes focusing on the little lights above the elevator. 4… 3… 2… With a ding the doors slid open and Riku stepped inside first, pushing the appropriate button before going straight across to the window at the opposite side. Riku loved this elevator, though he had only been in it a couple of times before. The first floor was nothing special, the window merely faced a wall. But as it rose to the second floor and beyond, the wall fell away to reveal a panorama of the entire city, and you could even see a bit of the ocean way off on the horizon.

He heard Sora enter behind him and the elevator doors closed. It shook as it started to rise. As soon as the city came into view, Sora pressed himself against the window, eyes wide. "Woah," he gasped.

Ignoring the fact that he had mentally been thinking the exact same thing, Riku scowled at the boy. "Don't act like some dumb island hick," he snapped.

Riku almost burst out laughing as he saw Sora twitch slightly, on blue eye rotating in his head to glance quickly at him. "Oh, this is brilliant!" Riku guffawed. "You _are_ some dumb island hick! No wonder you didn't know how to dress yourself!"

The brunet turned towards him, face turning in interesting shade of red. He opened his mouth to reply, but at that exact moment the elevator stopped with a ding and the doors opened, allowing a smirking Riku to smoothly step past the other.

With Sora trailing along behind him, Riku sauntered through a door and into the main office. He walked up to the front desk, smiling politely at the secretary. "Can I help you?" she asked, smiling right back.

"I was asked to escort him to the Headmaster," Riku said, jerking his thumb at the kid.

The secretary nodded, fluttering her eyelashes a bit at him before shooting a highly disapproving glance at Sora. "Go on back, he should be there."

Riku thanked her and once again set off, nearly laughing aloud as he glanced back and saw the nervousness splayed all across the boy's face. He spotted the office he wanted and whirled around suddenly when he was in front of the partially open door, quite ready to take his leave of the island boy. "Well, here we are. You enjoy yourself-" He was cut off by none other than the Headmaster himself.

"You," the man barked, appearing suddenly in the doorway, voice deep and gravelly. It took Riku a moment to realize that he himself was the 'you' in question.

"Sir?" he asked, trying not to smile at the picture that the leader of the school made. Goggles held back messy blond hair; he wore a tight white shirt, a huge brown beltish type thing, and blue pants. A piece of something stuck out of his mouth, and Riku had never seen the man without it. All in all, he looked more suited to working in a garage somewhere than being the leader of a school full of kids. Headmaster Cid was one in a million, that was for sure.

"Yer scholarship's been renewed."

Riku smirked. Like there had been any chance that it wouldn't be? And he had assumed that, since he had not been either billed or kicked out, his tuition was still being paid by the school, but it was still good to know for sure. He opened his mouth to thank the man but was once again cut off by a bark of, "You."

He saw Sora jump at the sudden change in targets. "Y-yes?"

"Yer mother not teach you how to dress yerself, kid?"

Riku knew he liked this guy for a reason.

* * *

"Detention."

A simple word, but one that had a profound effect upon the two boys. Riku's mouth fell open and he saw Sora out of the corner of his eye pout slightly. The bell signaling the end of class rang then, but it was quite obvious that Mendalson wasn't about to let them go any time soon. The rest of the class filed out around them as the two stood in the middle of the aisle, many shooting Riku sympathetic looks. Mendalson was infamous for his temper, and once you got on his bad side, you were there until the end of time.

Riku was getting angry. "What? Why do _I_ have detention?" he demanded irritably. Okay, so he had lingered around the bathroom for a while before leading Sora back. Okay, so he had done that completely on purpose so that class would be almost over by the time they got back. But even still, he hadn't done anything deserving of detention. Mendalson should have had no idea that they hadn't been up at the Headmaster's office the entire time, and it had been the kid that had pissed him off in the first place. So why was _he_ in trouble?

The only response Riku received was a stony stare. "Fine," Riku said, fixing the teacher with a stiff smile. Without another word, Riku retrieved his schoolbag from his seat and walked out of the classroom, inwardly fuming. He stomped down the hallway, glaring at random people and off in his own little world where he was dismantling the teacher limb by limb.

"Hey, um…"

Riku stopped dead in his tracks as the light voice broke into his thoughts, shattering his lovely image of revenge. He whirled around so suddenly and with such a scowl on his face that the source of all of his problems jumped back in surprise and nearly smashed into a pack of girls (who were, Riku noted, giggling at him and primping as they tried to attract his attention). "What?" he snapped.

"I- um- uh…"

"Spit it out."

"It's just, I- I wanted to say I'm- why do you have such weird hair?"

"None of your concern," Riku said snidely. He then turned and resumed his path through the hall. But he noticed that there was still another set of footsteps mirroring his own. For the second time the silver-haired boy spun around without warning. "_Why_ are you following me?"

"I'm not!" Sora exclaimed defensively.

Riku narrowed his eyes. "You are too."

"Am not!"

"Is ruining my day really not enough for you?" Riku snapped.

"What, one detention is enough to ruin your day? Your life must be really stupid." Sarcasm was heavy in his voice.

Riku didn't exactly see the logic, but he didn't bother to tell Sora so. Instead he scowled with as much force as he was able to. "Stop following me." The three words carried all the weight of a royal decree. Frowning, Riku started walking off again.

And then his eye twitched.

Riku frowned more, hoping that it was a one-time thing. Eye twitches were one of the few things on the planet that immediately defeated him, and they only came when he was overly stressed- or massively annoyed. Riku managed to make it two steps farther before…

Twitch.

"ARGH!" Riku cried, rubbing furiously at the offending eye. He felt no twitches under his fingers as he rubbed, and after a few moments he took his hand away, holding his breath. After a few more steps with no muscle spasms, Riku released his captive breath in a whoosh of air and relaxed.

Step, step.

Twitch.

Ready to rip the kid's overlarge head from his scrawny neck, Riku whirled around yet again, quite tired of doing so. But he stopped and blinked, confused when he faced nothing but a quickly emptying hallway. _All right, Riku, you're going crazy,_ he thought. Whatever. At least the kid was gone…

Riku nearly had a heart attack as he turned again, only to find himself face-to-face with a set of huge, shiny, blue eyes. Riku automatically jumped back a couple of feet, heart pounding wildly. "What the hell is your problem?" he yelled, not caring that the last people in the hallway stopped what they were doing and stared at him.

Sora smiled infuriatingly, linking his hands behind his back. "I'm going to class," he stated simply.

"Then _go_," Riku snapped, the bell signaling the beginning of the second hour chiming in its agreement. "Brilliant, now you've made me late," he growled.

Sora ignored the last comment. "I can't," he said. Riku glared at the smaller kid, not happy that he was late for his second class. After a moment, Sora sighed and pointed at him. "You're in my way?"

Riku finally realized that he was blocking the doorway of a classroom. "Oh, _no_," he said, catching the room number. "This is _my_ class."

Sora nodded, looking at him like he was a slow little kid. "And mine, too…"

Riku stared at him for a second. He was not happy.

Without a word, Riku stalked off away from his class, feeling the kid's eyes on him. His eyes started twitching again, and it was all he could do not to hit something.

Class could go to hell.


End file.
